Bongo Room

John's dad, Greg, is in town to see Austin. We went for a walk yesterday and had brunch at Bongo Room. They have these really gourmet pancakes. I had caramel apple pancakes with praline cream. Greg had red velvet pancakes and John had a skillet. You have to have something non sweet to counter all the sugar in the pancakes. It was SO good. It was 50 degrees outside and drizzly so I bundled Austin up. It was so funny! John kept saying you are putting too many clothes on him, but once we got outside I think Austin was the only one who was warm. I definitely didn't have enough clothes on! Here is a picture of Austin all bundled up in his carrier.

Austin Pictures

It's been a while...

Well Austin will be 3 weeks tomorrow. Time flies, but at the same time it feels like he has been here much longer. I don't know if that made any sense...
Well last week my parents were here. They were a HUGE help. Not only did they help with Austin but we also did some things around the house that needed to be done. We even rearranged the furniture in the living room.
This week I've been here by myself. I've had some melt downs and John has been late to work most days and left early. I hope they understand that we are new at this...haha!
So here are some updates on what has happened since I posted last:
1. Austin finally gained enough weight that we don't have to keep going to the ped. As of Tuesday he now weighs more than he weighed at birth. I'm sure one day we will look back and this and wonder how we could have been concerned that he wasn't gaining enough!
2. Breast feeding is HARD. I've been having a really hard time with it. I haven't given up yet, but have met with 2 lactation consultants + 1 in the hospital. I finally have enough milk that we don't have to give him formula anymore, but I'm still pumping a lot and giving him a bottle. Hopefully this will end soon so I'm not tied to my pump every couple hours!
3. I gave Austin his first bath in his bath tub. Guess what...he peed and pooped in it! Haha. Anyway that was an experience, and I did it by myself so you can imagine how difficult that was.
4. Austin has started to sleep in his bassinet at night, he doesn't sleep through the night, but at least we don't have to always hold him.
5. John and I continue to have trouble being able to tell when he is going to pee on us or himself when we change his diaper. We go through SO many clothes and changing pad covers.
6. He is starting to get a little more control of his head, but by no means has full control.
7. He is smiling more now. Also he loves his hands. He touches everything and is constantly trying to feel things. He even grabbed onto my glasses with a death grip yesterday. I'm sure he didn't know what he was holding but still it caught me by surprise.
8. John HATES cloth diapers! Haha! We are using a diaper service that we prepaid for, but I still keep finding Austin in disposable diapers. Oh well, he will get the hang of it eventually.
9. I have started to leave the house more. At first I couldn't because I couldn't carry the car seat carrier with him in it up and down the stairs. Now we just need to get more of a schedule down so we can go for walks outside.
10. I've lost 30 of my 45 lbs!! I hope the next 15 come off as easily...
I have taken some pictures and will post some later. Austin is waking up, so gotta go.

Sleep...finally

Well John and I FINALLY got more than 3-5 hours of sleep last night! We noticed when we went to the doctor on Thursday that Austin will sleep in his car seat. So, at 10:45 last night we put him in it. John rocked him in the car seat and he fell asleep. We put him at the foot of our bed and went to sleep. I woke Austin up at 2 this morning and fed him. Then I went to bed and John worked on getting him back to sleep. It took about an hour, which I think is ok since it took me an hour to feed him. John got him back to sleep and then I woke him up again to feed, but this time to my surprise it was 7:45 this morning! Jeez he never even woke us up to change or feed him. That was a very welcome change of events. We still try to put him down in the bassinet or pac n play during the day, but he still wakes up about 2 minutes after we put him down. This means we will probably be doing the car seat again tonight.
Grandma and Grandpa Dahir are coming next week. I hope we have this worked out by the time they get here, but at least we have a system down so we won't be up all night.

First Check Up

Austin had his first week check up yesterday. We went to this pediatrician because of a referral. I loved her! An added bonus, she is from TX and went to UT Med school. When I found this out I knew it was meant to be :). He lost 2 more ounces since we left the hospital. That's a total of 10 ounces since he was born. She said this was normal. His belly button was trying to fall off so she helped it along by putting a chemical on it, it fell off this morning! She said he was in perfect condition. We go back next week for a 2 week check up.

Austin pictures

Austin and John havig tummy time.
Waiting to leave the hospital
A few hours old
Right after I gave birth.

Just after he was born

Bath time

We gave Austin his first bath today. We figured after he peed on himself twice yesterday and hadn't bathed since Sunday in the hospital that he needed one. Also, he really stinks! Haha! We thought he still had pee on him, but we gave him a bath, which he DIDN'T like until we massaged his head. He still stunk after. So we started smelling different body parts to see if we missed something. We found the source of the smell...his belly button. We don't think it is infected, but we are going to the pediatrician tomorrow so we will ask just to be sure.
On another note, we FINALLY were able to get him to sleep laying in the bassinet by himself. Granted it was at 5:30 pm and he only lasted about 1.5 hours, but we made progress at least. John and I still took advantage of it and napped when he did. We just hope he sleeps better tonight!

A note about mom: my feet and ankles are SO swollen!! OMG my ankles are growing ankles. I've tried icing my feet and drinking more, but I guess it just takes time for the swelling to go down. Besides that and being a little uncomfortable at the deliver site, I'm doing well. Of course this is because John is here to help me, I can't imagine having to do this on my own. I'm so glad his company gave him a week off and didn't make him use his vacation time. I'm going to get his diaper bag ready for our doctor appointment tomorrow. Wish me luck, I've never packed a diaper bag before :)

How we are doing...

We brought Austin home from the hospital on Monday (Labor Day) at 5 pm. We planed to leave around 12, but we are starting to realize we are on someone else's time now. John and I have been living on very little sleep. Austin sleeps during the day and is up at night. We are working on changing this around.
He is a big eater and so we had to start supplementing with formula, about killed me the first time we gave it to him but he didn't seem to mind. My milk started coming in last night so I think we are done with formula for now. John and I were going crazy trying to stay up with each other, but we implemented a new system last night that I think might work better. I slept from 10 pm until 1:45 am and then we switched. It is 5:30 am now and John is asleep. I am SO glad he stayed home with me this entire week. We are really starting to work out some kinks. We are still having a problem getting him to sleep on his own. He literally will not fall asleep AND stay asleep unless one of us is holding him. This has been kind of brutal to hold him for 24 hours a day, but we are trying to work through this. I think he will be over this soon. He just wants to be held because its a new world out there and he was used to being carried in the womb.
John has been so helpful. I have had a lot of swelling and been in lots of pain since I gave birth. He has picked up the slack and has been so wonderful. I couldn't ask for him to do anything better. He lets me sleep and will stay up with Austin whenever I need it. He also has changed most diapers b/c we are currently using the pack n play and my back is still so sore from the epidural and I can't bend over. All in all it is going really well and we are so blessed that I had such an easy delivery and we have a healthy baby. I will try to post some pictures later. We are both in love with Austin and cannot get enough of him! Got to go change a diaper, post more later.

What Austin has taught me so far

Austin has only been here 4 days and I have already learned so much:

1. What instintaneous love is.
2. I'm much stronger than I ever believed.
3. There is nothing better than watching my son in John's arms.
4. John is an EXCELLENT support person, has not complained once.
5. The human body is an amazing thing.
6. I can go without sleep and function when it is for someone who needs me more than I need sleep.
7. 1 little mam can bring down 2 adults pretty quickly.
8. It takes 3 Tarvers to change a really dirty diaper (Kim, John, and Austin).
9. When changing a diaper with pee in it, he can still pee on his face (this happened twice today).
10. I love to watch him breastfeed. Knowing what I can provide for him is all he needs is really special.
11. We still have LOTS to learn. Eveyday is a new adventure...

Austin's Arrival

Well here is how it happened. I woke up at 3:30 am on Saturday September 4th with mild contractions. Ive had these off and on for weeks so I didn't think anything about it. At 4 am I woke John up because I figured since it was a weekend he could wait through them with me. Much to my surprise at 4:30 my water broke. John was still uncertain that it had but I kept telling him trust me. Anyway, I started walking around with a towel between my legs and about 5 am we called the doctor just to see when we should go to the hospital. He said we should come down but we wanted to wait a little longer. John still didn't believe I was in labor. In fact when I hung up he said you didn't ask any specifics about your water breaking. I was a little irritated, I'm like I didn't pee in my pants, what else would it be??
So about this time I decide to eat some cereal since they told us at the hospital they won't feed you until after you deliver a baby. I had John keeping track of my contractions, they were coming pretty fast. So we finished packing the bag with our day to day toiletries and he called a taxi. Even at 5:30 we had to wait for one to get there. I was worried about going down 4 flights of stairs so we went ahead and went down and waited outside for the taxi. Good thing we did, I lost my breakfast on the sidewalk outside our condo building! My contractions were coming pretty fast so John ran down to the corner and flagged down a taxi. We told him not to drive like crazy because he wasn't coming in the next 20 minutes.
We get to the hospital about 5:45 am and we went to triage. This is where they evaluate you to see if I am actually in labor. While we are waiting John says "You aren't in labor. We will be home by dinner!" OMG I wanted to strangle him. I'm in so much pain but he always says I'm a weenie, he didn't even believe the two towels I had soaked through...
In triage I start asking for an epidural within the first 20 minutes, I was in so much pain. They checked to see how far dilated I was and I was at 6.5 cm already, but they said they didn't give epidurals in triage...UGGGGGGGG.
So we had to wait for my labor and delivery room to be ready. That was the WORST wheel chair ride of my life! I get to labor and delivery and I start in again pretty quickly, WHERE IS MY EPIDURAL. They inform me that I'm second in line and will get mine once someone else gets theirs. The meanest Kim you have EVER met came out. I was getting contractions every minute or 2 and every time I would yell WHERE IS MY EPIDURAL. Same response every time...FINALLY the anesthesiologist gets there. I have NEVER seen anyone walk so slow in my life. I couldn't believe it, I mean I'm in REAL pain here. Then she says I need to tell you the side effects and have you sign some paper work. REALLY???? Why did I sign all this electronic paperwork already?? It was all the same questions over and over, so finally we are done and she said she has to look at my chart on the computer. Then she says, well the computer is frozen. I about LOST it. I even said some explicatives. John had to leave the room and they put the epidural in. She waited until I had a contraction before the needle went in, so you can imagine how well this was going...
Anyway after I had my drugs I was normal Kim. Of course this is when the nursing staff changed! So I apologized over and over to the original nursing staff who had "mean Kim". They checked again and said I was still 6.5 cm dilated. This was about 7:30 am or so. The doctor comes in and says you still have 2-3 hours of pushing ahead of you once we hit 10 cm. This is average for most moms. I'm like OMG I'm starving because I lost my breakfast, we have a long way to go. I told him, well I already feel like I should be pushing. He was like, Oh lets check. Much to his and everyone elses surprise I was at 10 cm and so they got me set up and I started pushing. I pushed for about an hour. Austin was born at 11:05 am on September 4th. He weighed 7 lbs 9 oz. Even the doctor was shocked that he wasn't at least 8 lbs because his head was so big. I said, well he got John's head haha. Anyway John cut the chord, in one try and then they dried him off. Then they had to stitch me up because I had some tearing. We stayed in labor and delivery until about 1 pm and Austin was awake the entire time. We then went to our postpartum room. We have an AMAZING view of Lake Michigan. Austin has been the best baby. Barely cries, sleeps a lot, and we have gotten much better at breastfeeding. We are all doing well and can't wait to go home tomorrow.

38 Week Picture

Here is my 38 Week picture. As you can see, I'm READY to have this baby. I wish he was as ready as me :)